Gameplay Basics
Stats Every character has five stats that help determine their effectiveness during the game. The five stats are Melee, Ranged, Magic, Defence, and Health. Melee is the characters ability in close quarters combat. The first value, before the slash, is the characters percentage chance to hit an enemy. The second value is the characters maximum damage with melee attacks. The maximum damage score is reduced by an enemies defence stat. Melee attacks have no range and are therefore only effective against adjacent foes. * Chance to hit = Melee Attack * Mouse over a target will update these stats, taking into consideration modifiers such as defense and resistances. * A white damage stat indicates that the player has a bane against a certain class of monsters. Damage is doubled against this monster type (after defense is taken into account). * Damage Types are indicated next to this stat. Ranged is the characters ability in non-magical ranged combat. The first value is the characters percentage chance to hit an enemy. The 'to hit' score for ranged is reduced by two for every space between the character and it's target. The second value is the characters maximum damage with ranged attacks. Like melee the maximum damage score is reduced by an enemies defence stat. * Chance to hit = Ranged Attack - (Range * 2) * Mouse over a target will update these stats, taking into consideration modifiers such as range, defense and resistances. * A white damage stat indicates that the player has a bane against a certain class of monsters. Damage is doubled against this monster type (after defense is taken into account). * Damage Types are indicated next to this stat. Magic is the characters ability in magical combat. The first value is the characters percentage chance to hit an enemy. The to hit score for ranged is reduced by one for every space between the character and it's target. The second value is the characters maximum damage with magic attacks. Unlike melee and ranged the maximum damage score for magic is not usually reduced by an enemies defence stat. See Magic Defence below for more details. * Chance to hit = Ranged Attack - Range * Mouse over a target will update these stats, taking into consideration modifiers such as range, magic defense and resistances. * A white damage stat indicates that the player has a bane against a certain class of monsters. Damage is doubled against this monster type (after defense is taken into account). * Damage Types are indicated next to this stat. Defence is the characters ability to resist melee and ranged damage. A characters defence score is taken off the maximum damage stat of all melee and ranged attacks. All attacks will do at least one damage no matter how high a characters defence stat. Defence has no effect on magic damage unless the character has the Magic Defence enchantment, see below. * Defense is a flat damage reduction number. Damage cannot be reduced to below 1. * Damage Type Resistances are indicated next to this stat. Health is how much damage a character can sustain before they are killed. Being reduced to zero health kills the character, unless they have the resurrect enchantment. See below for more on the resurrect enchantment. As there is no maximum for score, healing magic can increase health indefinitely. * Mouse over this stat to show Health-related enchantments (eg. Resurrection, Regeneration) * Damage Type Vulnerabilities are indicated next to this stat. Item slots Every character has nine item slots for carrying items. These are head, neck, torso, weapon hand, backup weapon, off-hand, hand worn, waist, and feet. Each slot can hold only one item. When a character picks up an item, any item already in that slot is dropped. The only exception to this is the backup weapon slot, which swaps with the contents of the weapon hand item slot. To swap weapons simply click the backup weapon slot or press x. There is also a tenth type of item, one use items, which do not have an item slot allocated for them as they are used immediately when picked up. Damage Types There are seven different damage types in HSL. Damage types manifest in three ways, as weapon damage, resistances, or vulnerabilities. If a character has a resistance then damage received of that type is halved. If a character has a vulnerability then damage received of that type is doubled. Each damage type has one or more secondary effects which are described below. Silvered damage has a chance of disarming any opponent that is successfully struck. Unlike other resistances having silvered resistance means all silvered damaged is quartered instead of halved. However, having silvered vulnerability means all silvered damage received is quadrupled. * The disarmed weapon will be placed in the same tile or an adjacent tile. Unconfirmed: disarmed weapon can be sent flying farther. Fire damage has a chance of destroying items carried by the target. If a fire resistant character is killed all those adjacent to them take damage from it's fiery death throes. * Resulting Fire damage from death is base 2 damage, affecting all 8 adjacent tiles. * Unconfirmed:Resistance to fire will reduce the chances of equipment being destroyed. Equipment can still be destroyed even with resistances to Fire. Lightning damage has a chance of stunning any character it hits. If a lightning resistant character is killed all those adjacent to them take damage from it's lightning death throes. Also, lightning resistant characters cannot be stunned. * Resulting Lightning damage is base 2 damage, affecting all 8 adjacent tiles. Poison/acid damage has a chance of poisoning any target hit. Poisoned characters have a chance each round of taking damage. Any healing will cure the poison. Poison resistant characters cannot get poisoned. * The poison effect against monsters is negligible since you don't want fights to last too long. * Poison has a chance to trigger with each step. Increased vulnerability to poison/acid damage means more damage and more chances to trigger. * Poison can reduce a character to below 1 (ie. death). * BUG Poison stays with the character after they resurrect. * Health gain from Regeneration, Divine or Necrotic effects does not count as the "healing" needed to remove the Poison. * Gaining Resistance to Acid/Poison will remove the Poison status. If poisoned, simply find any dropped item with Poison resist. Equip the item to be cured then switch back to the original item. * Disenchant-all effects will remove the Poison status. * Steam Update Poison will wear off eventually. Divine damage has a chance of increasing a characters stats when it is used to to kill an opponent. When using ranged or magic weapons, divine attacks can pass safely through other characters to hit targets behind them. * Divine attacks will ignore all other targets (allies and foes) to strike at the target you selected. * Divine damage has a chance to increase Health or Attack with each kill. The attack stat raised corresponds with the attack type used (eg. melee). There appears to be a cap limit of how high stats can raise from this effect. * BEWARE! Disenchants will remove all attack bonuses granted by Divine! * Tip: Shadeform reduces ranged and magic attack stats, bringing it below the cap limit and allowing Divine to add bonus attack, which remain even after Shadeform is removed! Necrotic damage has a chance of increasing a characters stats when it is used to to kill an opponent. * Necrotic damage has a chance to increase Health and Melee/Ranged Attack, not damage. There appears to be a cap limit of how high stats can raise from this effect. * BEWARE! Disenchants will remove all attack bonuses granted by Necrotic! * Tip: Shadeform reduces ranged and magic attack stats, bringing it below the cap limit and allowing Necrotic to add bonus attack, which remain even after Shadeform is removed! Psychic damage has a chance of reducing the stats of any character it hits. When using ranged or magic weapons, psychic attacks can pass safely through other characters to hit targets behind them. * Psychic attacks will ignore all other targets (allies and foes) to strike at the target you selected. * Psychic attacks lowers the affected stat of the target when it triggers. The "drain" does not grant the character any stat bonuses. * The penalty effect against monsters is negligible since you don't want fights to last too long. Enchantments There are some enchantments and abilities that do not fit into any of the categories above. These are described below. Map reveals the current level to the player. If the enchantment is on a carried item then subsequent levels are also revealed to the player. * Map reveal does not reveal hidden rooms. Swift increases the number of actions a character can take each turn. The icon will fade slightly when the player is taking their second action in the turn. * Take note of the faded icon because monsters will take their turns right after! Shadeform makes a character harder to hit with ranged and magic attacks. Ranged attacks against the character are reduced to 3/4, and magic attacks are halved. The shadeformed characters own ranged attacks are reduced to 3/4, and magic attacks are halved. Finally a shadeformed character can pass through single thickness walls. * Note that some areas are only accessible with Shadeform. * You can create your own "chokepoint" by standing inside the wall in the corner of a room. There's only one adjacent tile that monsters can attack from, unless of course there's another room connected to that wall! Magic Defence makes a character's defence also reduce magic attacks in the same way as melee and ranged attacks. * Normally magic attack damage is not reduced by Defense. Regeneration has a chance each round of giving the character a health bonus. * Regeneration's chance to trigger increases as the Health nears 0. * Regeneration will not raise your Health to above your character's starting Health. Resurrection will restore a character to full health when they reach zero health. If the enchantment was on an item, then the item will get destroyed when the character resurrects. * Resurrection restores a character to their full starting health. If any of these are on a weapon then that weapon has to be the primary weapon and not the backup weapon in order for it to take effect. Key controls PC: Mouse: Point and click as one would expect. You are able to click on the mini-map to move across the level that way. You can hover your cursor over an enemy to see their name, resistances, damage amounts and types, as well as anything else you may be looking for. To pick up items you have to step on top of them, point your mouse at roughly your character's sprite, and then their icon will pop above your head. You are able to view the stats just by hovering your cursor over them, both when they are above your head and from afar as well, but they have to be in your line of sight and not obscured by any darkness. To swap out your weapons you have to click on the small weapon slot beneath the primary one - the third slot down on the left side of the character outline. Then just pick up whatever weapon you want, and you can swap back and forth the same way. Be aware that swapping weapons counts as a turn, so plan ahead. Keyboard: Whilst the game is designed to be played exclusively with the mouse some keyboard controls are included for those that wish to utilise them. Keys that are preceded by an 'n' represent keys on the numpad. For example, n1 means key '1' on the numpad. The functionality of n5 and n. can be switched by pressing 0 or n0. Move/Attack/Action j k l y u b n n2 n3 n4 n6 n7 n8 n9 Wait . n5 Pick up , n. Drop d>2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Swap Weapons x 9 Target tab n* Fire f enter spacebar Confirm enter spacebar Cancel backspace Menu/Option shift>g b h n j m k , l . Tablet: Tap to move or attack. You can also tap on the mini-map to move just like in the PC version, though it's not incredibly acurate due to the size of the map/screen. You can swap out your weapons the same way as on PC, by tapping on the small icon box that lies beside the main weapon slot. Then just pick up whatever weapon you want, and you can swap back and forth the same way. Be aware that swapping weapons counts as a turn, so plan ahead. To pick up items you have to stand directly on top of them, and press and hold on your character's sprite to get the icon to pop up above your head. Keep holding down, and move the stylus upwards onto the hovering icon to read it's stats and pick it up. You can also pick items up off the ground by tapping their icon on a side menu that will pop up as you stand on top of them. This menu will be on the top right of the UI overlay. To read the description of an enemy or tile you have to press and hold on it. This will show you the enemy's stats, damage type, resistances, and anything else you might be looking for. It is also useful if you like checking out the various background tiles like leaking walls, bookcases, or anything else.